Fishermen’s Memorial loses to Panamax docks

For the Alaska Commercial Fishermen’s Memorial board in Juneau, fighting the city’s downtown cruise ship dock project has been a losing battle.

After years of protesting the project — which will make room for two 1,000-foot cruise ships to dock in the Gastineau Channel along the same stretch of waterfront as the granite memorial wall dedicated to lost fishermen — a final blow was struck Friday.

The Alaska Supreme Court ruled on an appeal in the case and issued a decision favorable to the City and Borough of Juneau.

Board president Carl Brodersen said after losing the lawsuit it filed against the CBJ, the board is now “reluctantly but resolutely” searching for a new home for the wall.

“As a community, we have a duty to honor all the names that are carved on the wall, and all the names that will be,” he told the Empire Friday after the court decision was released. “No one wants to move a grave, but it is the best option we have.”

For the city, the high court’s ruling validated that they lawfully conducted the process leading up to the construction of the new docks, which began this month. The written ruling also specifically noted there was “a number of opportunities” for public input over the years.

“We’ve always believed that the courts would rule in the city’s favor, that we’ve done our due diligence to make sure that we follow every federal, state, local planning rule regulation,” CBJ Port Director Carl Uchytil told the Empire on Friday by phone. “It’s certainly within the Fisherman’s Memorial’s (right to) file lawsuits. In speaking with (the CBJ law department) and others within the state and others familiar with maritime law, we’ve always believed that we were on sound ground moving forward with the project.”

 

Battle for bigger docks

The fishermen’s memorial board, a nonprofit organization, expressed concerns about the city’s dock project as soon it got traction and funding about six years ago.

The dock project entailed building two floating concrete berths in the channel about 200 feet offshore from the downtown pier. The idea was to accommodate what’s known as Panamax-sized cruise ships, the largest size vessels that can traverse the Panama Canal.

“The city of Juneau doesn’t have sufficient pier space to accommodate what the trend is in the cruise industry: larger and heavier vessels,” Uchytil said. “When the docks were built in the ‘20s, ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s, a huge vessel was (considered to be) 400 feet. Even in the ‘80s, (huge was considered) 400 feet. Now we’ve got vessels that are coming to Juneau that are in excess of 1,000 feet.”

With the new berths, Juneau would have a total of four that could accommodate cruise ships of that size.

One of the intended results of the project is less lightering, which is when a vessel is too big to access a berth and instead anchors out in the water and tenders tourists back-and-forth to port. Less passengers are likely to come ashore to see the capital city when that happens.

“The retailers and people selling tours will actually see an increase in revenue because those vessels will be seeing less lightering operations,” Uchytil said. He added, “The cruise ship industry is very important to Juneau — nearly 20 to 25 percent of all sales tax collected are from cruise ship passengers.”

 

‘Hallowed and solemn’ site

Members of the Fishermen’s Memorial Board almost immediately saw the dock project as a problem.

Board members believed the new docks would interfere with their annual Blessing of the Fleet ceremony.

Hundreds of Juneau residents attend the ceremony, usually held the first Saturday in May, to wish fishermen and women well at the start of the fishing season. People throw roses in the water and cheer for fishing boats parading in the channel. Bagpipes play, and in years past, the governor attends and gives a speech.

It’s more than just that, though, board president Brodersen said. He said the memorial wall, curved like a bow of a ship and standing in the location since 1996, is a hallowed and solemn place.

“To properly appreciate the issue, one needs to understand that the Memorial Wall is a gravesite — hallowed and solemn — for the 203 people (so far) whose names it bears, and that for the 47 of them who were lost at sea, it is the only gravesite,” he said. “When the new docks are completed, the memorial will be cut off from the sea. This, in a very real way, breaks the memorial.”

 

Litigation on two fronts

Over the years, the Fishermen’s Memorial board challenged a number of aspects of the project. The board ultimately filed two lawsuits: one against the City and Borough of Juneau and the other against the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

The lawsuit against the city listed a couple of different legal complaints, including environmental concerns, but the crux of the case was over a transfer of state-owned tidelands that the city needed for the project.

CBJ Attorney Amy Mead told the Empire the Department of Natural Resources alerted the city to the fact that a modified proposed location of the docks would mean that the cruise ships, when docked, would be over state-owned submerged land. DNR informed city officials that CBJ could apply for conveyance, which would transfer ownership of the tidelands from the state to CBJ.

“There’s a statute that allows a municipality to request a conveyance of tidelands, or I guess any entity, and we made a request to the state that they convey these tidelands to us for the purposes of 16B,” Mead said, referring to the dock project by its official name, 16B.

The Fishermen’s Memorial Board filed a complaint with DNR, arguing that the proposed transfer violated state law as well as the city’s own plans for land use and waterfront development. During subsequent litigation, the city accepted a contractor’s bid for construction of the docks, which presented another legal issue.

Ultimately, the case made it up to the Alaska Supreme Court, which on Friday confirmed the Alaska Superior Court’s decision to dismiss the board’s complaint and confirmed the conveyance of tidelands was a legal transfer.

“We appreciated the thoroughness the (Alaska) Supreme Court gave to the issues, and the decision is really comprehensive, and of course, we’re pleased with the outcome,” Mead said Friday by phone. “Now, the only piece left is the case against the Department of Natural Resources.”

 

What about the wall?

City attorney Mead and port director Uchytil both said in separate interviews they support the memorial wall. But they believe neither the wall nor the Blessing of the Fleet ceremony will be impacted by the new docks.

“I think that the City and Borough of Juneau has been very consistent in its appreciation and for its respect for the memorial, but it’s our position that this 16B dock project is not going to preclude them from using the memorial,” Mead said.

Uchytil said the board could host future Blessing of the Fleet ceremonies on the new docks, once they are built.

“We would be more than glad to allow the fisherman’s memorial to have the ceremony on the concrete floating berth,” he said. “So whether they can conduct their ceremony as they would like to, that’s for the fisherman’s memorial board to decide. But I will say that Docks and Harbors has always been willing to do whatever we can to help facility this ceremony, which we’re very supportive of.”

Manson Construction from Seattle arrived in the capital city last week to begin building the first of the two berths. The south berth is expected to be complete by May 2016, and the north berth is scheduled to be completed the next year. It’s a $54 million project, funded by two “head” taxes, the state’s Commercial Passenger Vessel Excise Tax and the local port development fee tax, which can only be used for tourism-related projects.

Brodersen said his focus is now on “the people whose names are on the wall, who along with their loved ones, still need a solution.” He said the board is looking at moving the memorial wall to the proposed Oceans Interpretive Center in the Willoughby district.

“The setting is appropriate and unlikely to be blocked by future construction,” he said. “As of last month, the Memorial Board is on record as wanting to relocate to that area. There are many years of project shepherding that need to take place before that even has a chance of happening, but it’s what we’re working toward.”